This week I met with Ed Wilson – the Executive Director of International Justice Mission, Canada. The mission of IJM is to rescue victims of violence and protect the poor by strengthening their justice systems. They do this in 18 countries around the world.

Ed was in town because the founder of IJM, Gary A. Haugen, was speaking at TED this week. At the end of the meeting he pulled out the book Gary wrote about the experiences that led him to found IJM. I realized when he had put it on the table, that I had actually ordered the book last year. I had read the first few chapters, but got distracted and moved on to other books, and other priorities. I couldn’t escape the irony. We are all like this with most global issues aren’t we? We know people are hungry, thirsty, and dying all around the world. We have these moments where we feel it – where we are interested in it. Where we sincerely care, and want to do something. And then those moments pass and we just keep… carrying on.

I went home after meeting with Ed and started to read the book again. It really is an amazing read. It’s called The Locust Effect. Its thesis is summarized well in its subtitle: why the end of poverty requires the end of violence. In it Haugen explains that helping alleviate hunger, and disease in the third world is absolutely necessary, but cannot be done properly without addressing the issue of violence which is the tragic, daily experience of the world’s poor.

He begins by explaining the first massacre site he was at. Rwanda. 1994. A million people slaughtered by machete in a span of 10 weeks. His job was to document it. As a follower of Jesus the thought hit him: these people “at their point of most desperate need, huddled against those advancing machetes, hiding in that church, did not need someone to bring them a sermon, or food, or a doctor, or a teacher, or a micro-loan. They needed someone to restrain the hand with the machete – and nothing else would do” (p. 10).

Haugen is right: “the world knows that people suffer from hunger and disease, and the world gets busy trying to meet those needs. But the world overwhelmingly does not know that endemic to being poor is a vulnerability to violence” (p. 11). IJM thus works with on-the-ground law enforcement to make poor cities, villages and countries safer. So that women and children are not raped and killed so easily. They rescue slaves and victims of violence and systematically work to protect the poor.This is complicated, hard and risky work. But it is a huge part of the call of the church. To fight for the poor and oppressed is part of what it looks like to bring ‘the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven’.

We can’t end poverty without ending violence. Interesting. Let’s think and pray on this rather than just carrying on today.